The GnATTERbox

For discussion of the issues faced when building a model or layout - how to replicate wood, what glues to use, exactly how much weathering can a Gnat take, a good source of detailing accessories - you get the picture, I'm sure.

The driver is Nigel 'Ice' Biscuit, great-grandson of Gari. When asked why he had taken 'Ice' as a nick-name he said that he thought it was cooler than Nigel ...

Nigel seems to lead a charmed life, always managing to avoid the dirty jobs, but always getting to drive one of the locos. The other drivers call him the Jammy Dodger ...

One malicious rumor has it that he and Stackers are in some sort of 'relationship'. Funny you should say that ...

... and now I can reveal the truth (but don't tell anybody else) ...

The time is the late 19th Century, the place Berger Hall ...

It was well known around the village that old Sir Sebastian had an eye for the maids employed at the Hall. The maids who served at table always got told to let the footmen serve him, as he had a tendency to grab more than his allotted portion if they did it. Gari’s Ma was an upstairs maid, and thought herself above the downstairs maids, but when the old goat started to take an interest in her she fell for his blandishments, despite the dire warnings from the Housekeeper, Mrs Lamb.

In due course the inevitable happened. To give him his due, Sir Sebastian did right by her as far as he could – he got her married off as quickly as possible to Arthur Biscuit, a young stable lad and one of the few unmarried workers on the estate. He also gave the couple an estate cottage to live in, and Arthur got promoted rather more swiftly than might otherwise have been the case. When young Gari came along, Sir Sebastian kept a discreet eye on him, and made sure he got employment on the estate when he was a lad.

Arfur Biscuit as Head Stableman

Gari’s Ma always felt that she’d married beneath her, though, and gave poor Arfur a hard time. She insisted on ridiculously high standards of cleanliness in their cottage, and best behaviour from Arfur and Gari, and ruled them with a rod of iron. She had wanted to call her son Sebastian, but Mrs Lamb counselled against it – it might give rise to some unfortunate gossip – so she chose another distinguished-sounding name – Garibaldi (there was much talk of the Italian of that name when she was little).

She had heard stories of what Arfur and Lucy’s Ma had been up to in the hayloft before he got married, and always harboured suspicions that they might get up to it again, so the idea of Gari marrying Lucy was not to be countenanced – indeed, she and Lucy’s Ma were sworn enemies.

She was still a good-looking woman, though, and wasn’t averse to meeting Sir Macintosh’s cousin, Sebastian Berger-King, behind the haystack of a summer’s evening. There was something about the name Sebastian …

Sir Macintosh and Gari. Whenever they were seen together the older servants at the Hall would smirk and nudge each other ...

So - if Nigel and Stackers had a Y-DNA test and their results were compared, they would find that they had a common ancestor somewhere back in the past. If they then did a bit of digging in the Muniment Room in the Hall they would find that Nigel actually has a better claim to Berger Hall than Stackers, being a direct descendent of Sir Sebastian ...

The 2-compartment open is finished and operational. The Smallbrook bogies were waiting for me when I got home, but they were a tight fit between the solebars of the coach - no room to pivot - so I cut one in half and made it a 4-wheeler ...

The Chinese Preiser rip-off seated figures were also waiting for me, and have been repainted, with the odd arm and head repositioned, and the coaches will have a full load of passengers now ...

I had an interesting day at Pewsey with Berger Hall 2019, aka Berger Hall Miniature Railway. An intermittant electrical fault rendered the two rear tracks unusable from time-to-time, and ETTIE, which performed flawlessly at Warley, jammed the left-hand cross-head and front wheel crank pin within 30 seconds of starting, so was relegated to the stock box.

However ... trains did run and people seemed to like the layout. At the beginning of this thread I called it a diorama/layout, and it seems to function best as the former. Operating at an exhibition quickly shows up any limitations, and MOMING '19 was no exception. I really had too many locos on at any time, even without ETTIE, and the curved tracks on the Rotaverser are too small a radius for LADY FRIDESWIDE and SIR MACINTOSH to run reliably - in fact the latter was very stuttery even on the straight, probably down to the iffy connection between loco and tender ...

Still, it did look nice ...

There's always someone taking photos ...

The latest addition was the tap and drains for the loco water supply ...

Stackers' rich friend Sir Huntley Palmer with his two miniature locos. In the foreground the 1:24 scale model of a 10.25 inch gauge model of ROYAL SCOT ...

I'm now about to start the Next Phase - coming soon to a thread near you ...

I think I've sorted the crankpin problen with ETTIE - pushed the pins in and tilted the crossheads outwards a fraction. It's due a check run soon.

As for the electrical fault on the back two lines - it went away later in the afternoon! I went though a diagnostic check with a kind soul from the Wilts group and it seemed to be the point that was at fault, but when it suddenly started working I didn't want to interfere! It may well have been caused by some last-minute ballasting of the point, with the PVA not quite dry causing a short. Warm venue - PVA dries - no fault. The yard is being modified right now for the New Phase - once that's done I can have a check to see all is still well.